SHADOWY BLUE
I had set a 11 PM appointment with Ms. Hua for a special assignment, met her, chatted briefly in the winter garden, then headed home. Her warm smile made me feel close to her. Throwing myself into bed with a smile on my face, I realized it was well past midnight.
I woke up to the doorbell ringing insistently in the morning. My phone showed eight o'clock. Groggy-eyed, I opened the door and came face to face with a courier.
"Mr. İlhan?"
"Yes! What's going on at this hour?"
He handed me a package. Rainwater was dripping from his hat, soaking his arms and hands. He extended a paper stuck to a hard plastic board for me to sign, and as soon as I signed, he jumped on his motorcycle and sped off.
I shut the door, dropped the package by the shoe rack, and rushed back to my bed to wrap myself in my warm blanket. Then my phone started buzzing again.
"Good morning, Prosecutor," said the voice on the other end.
"Sorry if I woke you…"
"What's up so early?"
"Prosecutor, a homicide case just came in from Üsküdar. Officer Selçuk will be about five or ten minutes late getting there. He asked me to inform you. I'm sending the address now."
I hung up and reluctantly got ready. As I left, my eyes caught the package that had just arrived, but I didn't have time to open it. When I got in my car, I checked the address the officer sent me. It was the same address where I'd met Ms. Hua last night! Strange... Maybe there was a mistake.
After battling heavy, turtle-paced traffic, I finally arrived at Ms. Hua's waterfront mansion. The rain had stopped by then. Breathing in the scent of wet earth, I stepped into the garden, which was swarming with police and reporters.
Crossing over the police tape surrounding the scene, I saw the woman lying on the ground.
The door of the newly built winter garden was swinging in the wind, repeatedly hitting the poor woman's body. Her wet black hair stuck to her face. I bent down and used my pen to brush her hair away from her face—and jumped up in horror.
It was none other than Ms. Hua, the woman I'd talked to last night, lying there. I looked around. When had this happened? She was alive when I left her. My heart pounded hard. They could even think I killed her, but no one knew I was here except my secret mission commander who sent me.
I bent down again and looked at the dagger plunged into Ms. Hua's heart. The blood flowing from the wound had stained the white marble floor red. There was no look of fear or worry on her face. On the contrary, a faint smile was frozen on her lips.
My eyes rested again on the small silver dagger. Decorated with colorful stones, it was buried deep in her body. She looked like she was just sleeping. Her lips were slightly parted.
I slipped my pen between her slightly parted lips and moved it around in her mouth to see if there was anything inside. When I pulled it out, I noticed grains of sand stuck to the tip. What was sand doing in her mouth? I grabbed gloves, tweezers, and an evidence bag from the forensic officer and knelt down beside the body again. I struggled to pick up the sand grains with the tweezers and put them in the bag. They seemed almost alive, spinning around on their own and shining with a bright blue light as they moved. Very strange! After examining a bit more, I stood up and looked around the winter garden. Colorful orchids and bonsai trees in carefully chosen pots caught my eye. On the wall directly opposite the entrance door hung a black and white painting in a wooden frame. Against the vibrant colors of the garden, the painting looked dull. Right under it was a wide walnut console table with blue-patterned porcelain jars lined up on top. Jars… I suddenly pictured a child crying over a broken jar. Was this a memory? A hand reached out, wiped my tears, and hugged me tightly. When my hand touched the tears rolling down my cheek, I felt a strange sensation. I tried to remember who it was, but the face vanished into a foggy blur. I had unconsciously taken a few steps toward the jars when an officer told me that Chief Selçuk was here. I needed to snap out of it. My head was spinning, and I was still crying inside that memory. I had no idea who the person was who wiped my tears and reached out to me. Struggling to pull myself together, I went over to Chief Selçuk standing by the garden gate. We shared a deep bond that went back to my father's time, but we usually kept things professional at crime scenes. "Good morning," he said, looking at my shocked face. "What's wrong? Are you okay?" I stood in front of him, trying to focus on his eyes, but my mind was all over the place. "Yeah, yeah. I'm fine," I managed to say. "Glad to hear it. This looks bad." "She's a Chinese woman. Mrs. Hua Li. In her fifties. Found this morning by her maid at the winter garden door." "So, it's murder," he said, squinting and pursing his lips. "Looks like it. A dagger stabbed in her heart." "A Chinese woman. Stabbed to death at her home!" He pursed his lips again, thought for a few seconds, then pulled out his famous notebook and scribbled something. When I smiled at him for still using an old-fashioned pen and notebook, he raised his eyebrows and gave me a sharp look. "Why are you laughing? Why would I stop using these? I can't get used to new gadgets. These are the best." He grumbled as he waved the notebook in the air while heading back to the body. "You should use these too! Your stuff breaks, but these won't." "If you say so." As we made our way through the reporters and under the police tape, an officer caught up with us and shared new information. The killer hadn't left any fingerprints on the dagger. The winter...
The fingerprints taken from the garden gate and inside belonged only to the staff and Mrs. Hua. Selçuk Amir leaned over Mrs. Hua's lifeless body on the ground. He pulled a pen from the inside pocket of his jacket and brushed his hair back from his face, which the wind kept messing up. It was hard looking at the dead woman I'd talked to last night. I remembered the sadness and sincerity in her eyes. She was so genuine and warm. Not being able to explain the situation to Selçuk Amir was another frustration. But some high-level tasks had to remain secret. I had to grit my teeth and focus on solving the case.
As Selçuk Amir pulled out his pen, a small cylindrical pendant attached to a thin gold chain tangled in the woman's hair slipped free, rolled, and struck the dagger repeatedly. None of this made sense. I was trying to figure out what had happened after our conversation last night. All I could recall was how rushed she seemed at that moment. But she was already home. Was she supposed to meet someone? Who was coming? Questions swirled in my mind.
"Do we know the time of death? Any signs of a struggle?" Selçuk Amir asked loudly. "Did she have any enemies? I want another fingerprint analysis. Most importantly, I want detailed info about this woman."
"All the documents are here, sir," an officer said, handing over some papers.
Selçuk Amir took the papers and waved them toward me. I couldn't get mad at this old man. Even though he'd passed retirement age, he volunteered to keep working in the homicide unit. I'd known him since I was a kid. After my father died, he never left me alone and treated me like his own. With his support, I became a prosecutor. His only pastime was sitting me down for a drink when he felt down. He was lonely. Whenever I asked why he never married, he'd always shut me down with, "Don't ask!"
"Ilhan!" he called, motioning for me to come closer from where he squatted. I crouched beside the body. As I dusted the dagger for fingerprints, I focused hard.
"There really are no fingerprints on the dagger. Professionals."
"Planned!" we said at the same time. After a brief glance at each other, we stood up.
"They'll take the body to forensics shortly for an autopsy." Selçuk Amir patted my shoulder warmly. "Come on, let's talk to the household staff and check Mrs. Hua's room."
I was surprised by his suggestion. Normally, we each did our own questioning. As we left the winter garden, I couldn't take my eyes off the smile on the woman's lips, where her blood mixed with the rainwater.
Ignoring the reporters' questions, Selçuk Amir headed toward the mansion's entrance, and I followed. When we got there, I was speechless at the stunning craftsmanship of the door. I must have been out of my mind because today I was drawn to things that had no place at a crime scene. The double-winged door, with hand-carved tulip designs, was made of walnut wood. I knew this material well. Even though time had darkened it, the tulip motifs still held their elegance. A cool breeze scented with rain from the Bosphorus hit my face as the door creaked open.
The moment I stepped inside, the scent of sandalwood incense hit me, instantly reminding me of mornings when my mom would wake me up with kisses. Her hugs… I could still sometimes feel those arms tightly wrapping around my small body. I sighed without meaning to. Selçuk Amir was busy examining the portraits of Ottoman sultans that lined the walls of the long, wide corridor painted blue. They weren't exactly easy to ignore. Underneath the portraits of world leaders were small framed thank-you letters—proof of the important friendships Mrs. Hua had built. Of course, someone with so many friends would also have enemies.
I stopped in front of the portrait of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror. The letter beneath it was bigger and longer than the others. At the very bottom, there was some writing in Chinese, which none of the others had. Just as I was about to take a photo with my phone to look up a translation online, the maid suddenly appeared beside me.
"Mrs. Hua took great care of these paintings," she said, her voice trembling with tears.
"How can I help you, ma'am?" Selçuk Amir jumped in as if he'd been waiting for her question.
"Can you tell me—are all these paintings real?"
"As far as I know, yes. Mrs. Hua valued these paintings deeply. She wouldn't let anyone touch them; she cleaned and maintained them herself. You might have heard, she loved traveling. She was really into history too. She'd tell us about the places she'd been. She admired the Ottomans, especially Sultan Mehmed."
Her swollen eyes showed she'd been crying for a long time. Clearly, Mrs. Hua had made herself beloved to the staff who worked in her home. After a few comforting words from Selçuk Amir, he asked the maid for permission to look into Mrs. Hua's room.
As we climbed the stairs to the upper floor, the familiar smell of sandalwood hit my nose again. We stopped in front of a blue door with a jacaranda pattern. I turned the pink doorknob and pushed the door open, and both of us were left speechless.
A huge bed with an intricately carved walnut headboard and a large Kilis rug in shades of red and blue covered most of the room. The breeze flowing through the open window made the red silk curtains dance gently, and suddenly the room was filled with the sound of a ferry's whistle from the Bosphorus.
At the same time, we both said, "Wow!" Hesitantly, we stepped inside.
Among all these valuable items, the simplest thing was a black-and-white painting placed by the bedside, similar to the one in the winter garden. It was a rare handmade piece done in Chinese ink—a true Shui-Mo-Hua painting. Water, ink, and art... I knew about it since I'd been interested in it before.
Selçuk Amir leaned closer to the painting, focusing on the Chinese text on the right side of the frame. "I wish we knew Chinese," he murmured. "I wonder what it says."
"This phone could come in handy here," I said with a smile.
Though he gave me a sideways look, he nodded in agreement, pulled out his phone, and took a picture of the writing. Then we spent some time rummaging through drawers and cabinets for clues. Selçuk Amir showed me some stacked jewelry boxes he found in one of the drawers.
"This must be what wealth feels like," he said, staring at the sparkling stones inside the box he'd just opened. Just then, his phone rang. On the other end, a cop was unloading instructions for Mehmet to investigate Mrs. Hua Li. Without missing a beat, Mehmet went back to opening and closing drawers. I was checking out the desk and the small bedside tables.
I stretched my hand into an empty drawer and noticed a slight bump in the bottom right corner. It wasn't a piece of jewelry or anything—it didn't move. I turned on my phone's flashlight and shone it on the spot. "I think I found something!" I shouted.
"Let me see."
It was a button. When I pressed it, one of the paintings on the wall swung open like a door. We stared at each other, stunned. Behind the painting was a small iron safe embedded in the wall. It didn't look like it would open easily. We searched the room for a key for a while but came up empty.
I slumped into the chair in front of the desk, thinking. If I had a safe like this, where would I hide the key? Then I remembered the necklace slipping out from Mrs. Hua's hair and falling to the floor. "I think I know where the key is!"
I ran down the stairs to the conservatory just as the ambulance was about to leave the mansion's garden with the body. I stepped right in front of it, showed my ID, and said, "I'm Prosecutor İlhan. I need to take a quick look at the body."
I grabbed the necklace from Mrs. Hua's neck, put it in an evidence bag, and went back to the room. Selçuk, the chief inspector, opened the small gold cylinder necklace. Just as I'd guessed, inside was a thin, long, rusty key. Our eyes met, full of excitement. I could hear my heart pounding. If we could open the safe, maybe we'd find a clue leading to the killer.
I carefully inserted the key into the safe's lock and turned it. Click. I turned it again. With a soft thud, the heavy door of the safe swung open. We held our breath and peeked inside. There were only two things: a leather-bound notebook and a box. From the box, we pulled out another rusty key, slightly bigger this time. Looks like we'd have to open another door or safe. I slipped the key into my pants pocket.
Selçuk started flipping through the notebook's pages, grumbling. "It's all written in Chinese! Looks like a diary. I'll call Akif to get a translator. There are too many pages; we can't just read it over the phone."
"That sounds like a smart plan," I said with a wink.
As we walked down the stairs, we took a deep breath, savoring the scent of sandalwood incense, then left the mansion. Selçuk was coming with me. When we stepped outside, there were no journalists or cops left in the garden. Seeing the blood on the ground made my chest tighten. Why did I feel guilty? That was strange.
When I got to the car, Selçuk was already waiting by the door. Had he gotten here faster, or was I just slow?
As I took the wheel, he said in that fatherly tone again, "You're out of balance from hunger, kid. Let's stop somewhere for breakfast on the way so you can pull yourself together. Come on, drive."
When I turned the key and started the car, the tunes coming from the radio took me back to my childhood again.
My heart aches quietly
Tears that don't fall from my eyes
A buildup inside me from years ago
I don't know when it'll burst
The broken memories of my childhood suddenly appeared and disappeared with every note. I turned the steering wheel to the right and got onto the main street.
I know this has an end
I know every problem has an end
I know this has an end
I know every problem has a solution
The car in front of me suddenly stopped. I slammed on the brakes hard! We barely made it in time. I almost crashed.
I've never gone hungry or thirsty
I've never been without money
I've never been without love or affection
So why, what, or who is this longing for?
When the radio suddenly went silent, I snapped back to reality. Selçuk Amir had turned it off.
"Got a problem, kid?" he snapped. "What's up with you?" When I reached to turn the radio back on, he quickly grabbed my hand.
"Son, what's going on with you? Tell me. You'll feel better!"
"It's nothing you don't know already." For a moment, our eyes met. He saw the tears in mine.
"Look. If you're going to be like this every time you leave a scene, then maybe this job isn't for you."
"That's why you know it's not true!"
Five minutes later, we were sitting at a breakfast table by the seaside. We didn't say a word until the tea arrived. I could tell she was giving me a weird look. I was sure if I looked at her face, she'd make me laugh. While I was wrestling with my thoughts, the phone suddenly rang.
"Hello. Yeah." … "We're going to grab something to eat and then head to the forensic office with Prosecutor İlhan." … "Yeah, she's with me." He put the call on speaker. It was Mehmet. Seems like he finished investigating Mrs. Hua. We could hear him taking deep, excited breaths.
"Boss, things are starting to go in some really unexpected directions," he said finally.
"What do you mean?"
"This woman is really something else. She's 57, Chinese, and has been living in Turkey for years. I found out she comes from a very noble family back in China, but which one is a secret. Maybe even royalty. She doesn't work but loves traveling. There's no country she hasn't been to. She knows every king and president—no friends, just acquaintances. The weirdest part is about her last trip… There's no record of the plane ticket she supposedly bought to come here—if she even bought one—and her name isn't on any travel lists."
"Where did she go last?"
"Africa… what was it called? Okay, got it. Sao Tome, an island in the middle of the ocean. It means Saint Thomas and Prince Island in Turkish."
Commander Selçuk took a quick sip of his tea. We were both hooked.
"There's no record if she's married," Mehmet continued. "Only one hospital record shows her name on a birth certificate from 32 years ago."
Selçuk, trying to jot down notes in his little notebook, crossed out the last word he wrote and waited.
"As for the mansion she lives in…" Mehmet paused, then laughed. That was a sign he was getting frustrated.
"You won't believe this. I had a hard time believing it myself at first. Everyone who hears her name looks at each other. The mansion she lives in was built for her by Ayhan Pasha's playboy son-in-law!"
"What? Did we hear that right?"
"Nope. While researching her name, I found documents in the Ottoman archives."
"Isn't she supposed to be 57?"
"I seriously doubt it. There's a black and white photo in the archives of Mrs. Hua standing next to Atatürk!"
"What have we gotten ourselves into?" Commander Selçuk said.
I was just sitting there, hanging on every word Mehmet said. So that's why the mission they gave me was secret. I was supposed to go to the woman and tell her, "We can't let you live in this country anymore. The dangers are increasing." After seeing her once, it was up to me to investigate her murder. While I was trying to figure out how to handle this, my phone buzzed. Önder, the guy who assigned me the secret mission, warned me to watch my back. What the hell! I threw my phone on the table. Selçuk, the chief, raised an eyebrow and gave me a look like, "What's going on?" I just gave him the same raised eyebrow back and said, "Nothing."
I tried to focus on what Mehmet was saying. Between his long sentences, he was breathing fast but kept going.
"The groom tried to hide his weakness for this woman. After the waterfront mansion was finished, visits to Mrs. Hua, who moved in, started to get less frequent. I think it was because she was Chinese, and people suspected she was getting state secrets from the groom. As the rumors grew, he pulled back. But this time, the woman became even more of a focus. Sultan Ahmed III himself met with her once or twice in the gardens of Sadabat Palace to discuss state matters."
Selçuk was fidgeting in his wooden chair. "Mehmet! How reliable is this info?" he asked.
"Boss, this isn't just ordinary news." We were waiting for Mehmet to say, "I'm kidding!" but he dropped something even crazier.
"Sir, like I said, this woman's name goes all the way back to Atatürk's time. She's in a group photo with Atatürk—one of the women next to him. In the background. But she's there."
"Cut to the chase, Mehmet."
"I think our country used this woman like some kind of spy for many years. Although her frequent disappearances lowered trust in her, she kept her role. She might have worked for other countries too."
The whole thing was starting to come together. We took sips of our cold tea, breathed in the iodine smell, and watched the seagulls. Selçuk looked over his notes.
"Are you thinking the same thing I am?" he asked me.
"About what?" I snapped and got up from the table. Paid the waiter and stormed outside. I'd pissed him off. He didn't say a word on the ride.
"Sorry. My head's a mess. I don't even know what to think," I said. I couldn't reveal what I knew, after all.
He tapped his finger three times on his door's glass and looked at me.
"After all that info, don't you have any questions at all?"
"Mehmet told me everything. He did a good job investigating."
"I just can't wrap my head around this, İlhan!" he shouted. "A prosecutor like you should have questions!"
"Of course I do. How did she survive all these years? Didn't age, didn't die?"
He stared at me, wide-eyed. "How did you come up with all that?"
"The first question that popped into my head was obviously this one." I put the key in and started the car. "If we solve this murder, we'll have the answer to the problem too, right?" He leaned back in his seat and rolled down the window. We both knew where we were headed. But on the way, Akif called, so we stopped by the station first and gave Mrs. Hua's notebook to him. He had found a Chinese interpreter. After that, we went to the forensic lab. At the autopsy room door, Metin Soydan, the forensic specialist, greeted us wearing a plastic apron and gloves. "This case looks really complicated, I guess, prosecutor," he said.
"Is it that obvious?"
Chief Selçuk didn't come in. We went over to the steel table where the body was laid out. It was covered with a white sheet, just like my dad's always had been, and every time I came here, that cruel image took over my mind. Which was worse? Losing your dad or your mom? Well, it didn't really matter to me since both were gone. I thought about my mom. I never got to see her lifeless body. Shortly after she died, my dad left me too, and I hadn't left my room for days. One day, I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed. "God, please take me to my mom and dad," I said. I remember my mom's voice: "When you think of me, close your eyes tight and imagine you're coming to me," she used to say. Even now, whenever I remembered that, I did the same. Of course, very few people knew about this deep emotional mess inside me.
"We found something inside her mouth," the doctor said. "It looks like sand, but the report says it has many different components."
Everyone was moving fast with this case that attracted special attention. As soon as Mrs. Hua's body arrived at the forensic lab, they started the examinations. The doctor pulled the sheet down to her neck. Using long tweezers, he took the sand particles from her mouth and showed them to us. The grains were shiny and mostly blue in color. "We found the same substance in her stomach and intestines. The weird part is, we don't know what this stuff is or its nature. Maybe this sand caused her death."
"But she has a stab wound in her heart!" I blurted out.
"Things aren't always what they seem." He moved to the other side of the table and faced me. "In this job, you see all kinds of things. What's interesting in this case is that she swallowed sand. Why? What was her purpose?" Then he pointed to her heart area over the sheet. "The killer stabbed the dagger into her heart and twisted it without pulling it out. It looks like a deliberate effort to make sure she really died."
I immediately asked the question that was bothering me. "What time did you say she died, doctor?"
"Around three-thirty or four in the morning."
So she was killed about three hours after I left her side. That means we were too late to warn her about the danger. I was probably the last person who spoke to her, and I had to figure out what the key in my pocket unlocked.
When we got out of the forensic lab, the number of questions we were searching for hadn't gotten any smaller. As we were heading to the car, I suddenly remembered the Chinese painting I'd seen in the winter garden. "There was the exact same painting in the bedroom too." I stopped dead in my tracks, and Selçuk Amir immediately stopped behind me.
"Did you notice?"
"No. I never paid attention. What's wrong with that painting?"
"A safe was found behind the painting in the bedroom. Maybe there's a safe behind this one too. Why not?"
"Could be. It's worth checking."
We locked eyes. Our new plan was set. We jumped in the car and headed straight for Üsküdar. When we got to the mansion, we saw a few reporters had come back. We ignored their questions and headed straight to the winter garden. In just a few seconds, we were about to lift the painting to check behind it. My heart started pounding again, like it was warning me at times. But when we gently moved the painting, all our excitement disappeared. There was no safe, or anything else, behind the wall.
"There has to be something. Let's look for it," I insisted. I scanned every corner of the winter garden, hoping to find a clue.
"Come on, stop wasting your time," said Selçuk Amir.
"Let's leave. Maybe tomorrow, if we figure out what's written in the notebook, we'll find out where to use the second key."
I didn't argue. After dropping Selçuk Amir off at his place, I went home feeling like a truck had run over me. It was both physical and mental exhaustion. I couldn't sleep for a while. Mrs. Hua kept running through my mind. I must have finally passed out from tiredness while thinking over everything that had happened since midnight last night.
In the morning, I woke up again to the phone ringing. Selçuk Amir told me most of the notebook had been translated and asked me to meet Mrs. Hua at her mansion right away. It only took me five minutes to get ready today—a personal record. As I was leaving, I noticed the package that had arrived yesterday morning, but I still didn't have time to check what was inside. I left the house and raced to the mansion.
I parked behind the car that had brought Selçuk Amir and went into the winter garden. He was waiting for me there. The torn-off caution tape fluttered in the wind, hitting the folder in Selçuk Amir's hands repeatedly.
A uniformed police officer opened the mansion door.
"Where are the servants?" Selçuk Amir asked.
"They're not here anymore."
"There's no one left to serve. Right! We're going upstairs."
We passed the officer standing aside and headed up the stairs. The place felt even gloomier than yesterday. I felt heavier inside. The blue door was wide open, but the window was shut. Selçuk Amir sat down in the chair in front of the desk, opened the folder, and began reading one of the A4 sheets with the Turkish translation.
"I don't know which notebook this is. If those after me find out who I am, they won't let my son live either. I have to find a way to reach him. No matter how I tell him what I've been through…"
"I don't think she'll believe me. She might not understand that I did it to protect her. Even from afar, I have to keep following her and keep her safe." Selçuk Amir kept reading from a fresh sheet of A4 paper.
"This notebook isn't a diary. It's more like a cave where I've stored all my secrets. Everything I've been through since the day I escaped the palace... it was an incredible adventure for me. My father never understood how I got out of those locked rooms."
I asked, confused, "What is this woman even talking about?"
"I'm trying to figure that out too, kid. How does someone escape from a locked place?" Selçuk Amir turned to a new page.
"The dates don't make sense. Maybe the days do, but the years... I've been through so many different events at so many different times—dead kings, wars, handsome young men, pleasures—they don't affect me anymore. Maybe when I go back to the palace, history will change and my king father will be dead. I wonder how poor mother's illness is doing. She's always stood up for me. Oh, my beautiful garden..."
I guessed, "So this woman's father is the King of China, then."
"And she's a princess herself, right?" Selçuk Amir took a deep breath, straightened his shoulders, and scanned the room with his eyes for a long moment before turning back to me.
"We get that she's a princess from what she wrote, but there's no monarchy in China right now. So why does she call her father king? That's a big question, kid."
"Then she must be traveling through time, plain and simple."
"That's the last crazy thing we needed! Do you actually believe this stuff?"
Of course, it was hard to believe, but I couldn't find any other explanation. It all felt like a movie set—meaningless grains of sand, tangled timelines, kings, princesses...
"What you're reading matches what Mehmet told us yesterday," I said. I was trying to defend this time travel story, even though I didn't want to believe it. "If she can be anywhere, anytime she wants, why couldn't she escape the murder last night?"
"That's the real question!"
He put the papers away and closed the folder.
"We need to read and understand this carefully. Why was she killed? Was she really traveling through time? How did she do it? Blah, blah, blah... So many questions." He waved his hand around in the air.
"How could she have escaped those locked rooms? Maybe there were secret compartments!"
"Now it feels like anything's possible," Selçuk Amir said.
"I think we need to take a closer look at the winter garden."
"Alright then. Maybe we missed something!" We hurried down to the winter garden. We told the police officers we needed to inspect and asked them to step outside. My eyes were on the painting, but first, we stood around with our hands on our hips, wandering among the flowers for a while. It felt like something was nudging me, trying to delay me from finding what I was looking for. Finally, I went over to the painting and took a photo of the two lines of writing in the bottom right corner, then uploaded it for translation. Yesterday, Sergeant Selçuk had taken a photo of the Chinese characters embroidered on the bedroom painting. We compared them. I wasn't wrong. Both paintings had the same text:
"In shaded blue,
The dust of time lies hidden.
Count the corners in pairs to find it.
Don't trust your eyes,
What you seek lies beneath your feet."
Sergeant Selçuk pursed his lips and looked at me.
"What's 'shaded blue' supposed to mean?" I asked.
"I don't know." When I googled "shaded blue" and "Chinese," all I got were pictures of blue jeans. Total letdown... This time, I searched "What does shaded blue mean in China?" and found some useful images...
"I think I found it!" I shouted. "These jars right in front of us. Blue-patterned Chinese porcelain!" Selçuk Amir showed he approved with a gentle pat on my back. We immediately went over to the six jars sitting on the walnut dresser by the wall. We checked inside each one, but they were all empty. At least now we knew what shaded blue was. Next up: finding the dust of time.
I held one jar, standing there wondering what the dust could be, when I remembered the grains of sand we saw in Mrs. Hua's mouth. That had to be the dust of time we were looking for. But these jars were completely empty.
"Looks like we're on the right track," said Selçuk Amir. "But to find this dust, we need to solve the whole poem."
He was right. I focused back on the poem. The third line was practically shouting, "See me, see me!"
"Count the corners in pairs." But what corners were we supposed to count? There were so many things with corners in the winter garden.
Selçuk Amir stood in front of the painting again, hands on his hips. "If this poem's written on the painting, then I think we need to count the corners in the picture." The painting showed a classic Chinese house. We counted seven corners. If we doubled that, would it be 14? Or should we count the 1 and 4 in 14 separately? We were totally confused. Selçuk Amir sat down on the floor, leaning back against the dresser.
"Then what we're looking for must be right under our feet!"
That line was the biggest clue. It was so clear.
Selçuk Amir jumped up and stomped the floor.
"Right here. Just beneath us!" I said.
The maid had told us that Mrs. Hua spent most of her time here. Everything was starting to make sense. I went over to the entrance of the winter garden and started looking around more carefully and with fresh eyes. My gaze kept shifting between the flower pots and the dresser. Since Mrs. Hua did this often, the thing we were looking for must have been something that moved easily.
Just as I was about to pull the dresser, Selçuk Amir's phone rang.
"Hello. Yes?" … "Yes, Minister." … "But to solve the case…" … "At your command, Minister. Have a good day."
Selçuk Amir hung up, his face bright red. He looked at me so hopeless and desperate.
"That's it!" he said. "They've closed the file!"
"What do you mean they closed the file?!"
I was so furious I was practically breathing through my nose; I kicked over three flower pots, knocking them all down. It took a while for Selçuk Amir and me to calm down.
"That's how the world works, kid," he said. "Every country has secrets it hides."
We sat there helplessly where Mrs. Hua's body had been found. I didn't know what to think. With the last order, our hands were tied. We left the house full of questions buzzing in our minds.
An hour later, I was back at my own place. I slumped into the chair facing the front door, feeling like an empty sack... Trying to process everything that had happened. As memories kept swirling in my head, my eyes caught sight of the package at the entrance—I'd completely forgotten about it. I got up, dragging my feet, and went over to grab the package.
I had no idea who it was from. Inside the big package, there was just one envelope. Must be some joker! Who puts only one envelope in a huge package anyway? Inside was a short, barely legible letter that looked like it had been scribbled in a rush.
"Hi İlhan. I know you're probably shocked. By the time you get this letter, I might not be alive. You might even hate me." Yeah, I was already starting to hate. I'd never liked people who tried to act mysterious like that.
"Do you wonder how you know me? You have a right to know. You're my son, Jang. I'll write more later." What do you mean I'm your son, Jang? Who the hell was this nutcase? More than just a prankster… maybe someone with serious mental issues. I read it again to make sure I wasn't misunderstanding.
"My mother's dead!" I shouted to myself. "Who the hell are you to claim you're my mother?"
And then they called me by a Chinese name. Crazy! Were the people who killed Mrs. Hua messing with me too?
I crumpled the letter into a small ball and threw it across the room. It bounced off the corner. I tore at my hair, fed up with this nonsense that was suffocating me. I ran to the bathroom, stood in front of the mirror. I pinched my right cheek between my fingers — I wasn't Chinese. I leaned in closer, running my hands through my hair. Turned on the tap and splashed water on my face a few times. There was nothing about me that should make anyone think I looked Chinese. Maybe my eyes? No, that didn't fit either. Besides, anyone could have black, stiff hair. As I dried my face, I looked at myself in the mirror again. "Ridiculous!"
The letter claiming to be from some mother had come into my hands that morning. Maybe she gave it to the courier late at night or really early in the morning? I picked up the letter from where I'd thrown it and read it a few more times. Trying to rewind everything in my head to figure out what was going on, my phone rang. It was Önder.
"Someone's after you! Get out of there now!" he said, then hung up.
God, I was about to lose it. Why would someone be after me? It had to be connected to Mrs. Hua's murder. What a joke! I tried calling Önder back, but his phone was off. Clearly, I wasn't going to find any answers sitting around at home. I grabbed my stuff and headed straight to Mrs. Hua's house alone. I didn't want to drag Selçuk Amir into this. At this point, everything I did would go against orders anyway.
The garden of the mansion was being whipped by fierce wind coming from the sea. The winter garden door was locked. I kicked it hard and broke the glass. Careful not to step on the shards, I got inside and turned on the light. I needed to clear my head and focus.
I opened the poem from the Chinese painting on my phone and read it again:
"In the shadowy blue,
The dust of time hides.
To find it, count the corners even."
"Don't trust your eyes, what you're looking for is right under your feet." I was walking among the flowers, talking to myself. "Under my feet. But where exactly?" I pulled a few pots aside to see if the marble tiles underneath were loose.
"Count the corners, even number. Even number. But how?" I stood in front of the dresser and counted the corners of the house in the painting on the wall again. Seven. If I count them as even, that's fourteen. I turned my back to the dresser and started stepping. On the 14th step, I bent down and ran my fingers along the edges of the marble tile I was standing on, but nothing unusual showed up.
Suddenly, Mrs. Hua popped into my mind. I imagined her watering the flowers in front of a pot. That night, while we were talking briefly, she was watering her plants. Her short height had caught my attention. Of course! My steps couldn't be the same as Mrs. Hua's tiny steps. I counted my steps again next to the dresser, but this time I took small, tiny steps.
After 14 steps, as I leaned down on the white marble, I noticed some faded Chinese writing on the tile. "There you are. What are you hiding underneath? Show me!" I ordered the tile, as if it were alive.
I pressed the corners of the marble, jumped on it, but it didn't budge! It'd be good to get that Chinese writing translated online.
Word: DAO
Meaning: The way, method.
The explanation said something about not using physical force, clearing the mind and thinking… stuff like that. I straightened up and closed my eyes to clear my mind, just like the explanation said. For me, it was as hard as squeezing a lion through the eye of a needle. For two minutes, I tried to control my hands and feet and stay silent, and just when I thought I could finally concentrate, my phone rang. Oh, God!
"Where are you?" Önder asked, panicked.
"You told me to hide, so I'm hiding!"
"Listen! The guys after you are Chinese. I think they're the killers of that woman too."
"What does that have to do with me?"
"Maybe they know you were the last to see her, they were probably watching her."
"Then they might suspect Mrs. Hua told me something."
"Probably! Looks like a major internal government showdown."
If they're after me, they'll figure out sooner or later that I'm here. I was feeling discouraged. I hung up. I had to finish this quickly. I closed my eyes to clear my mind."
I had to do it. The moment I turned off the lamp to focus, I saw a car's headlights go out right in front of the waterfront house. I had to hurry. I closed my eyes and tried not to think about anything, just focusing. A few seconds later, when I opened them, the writing started to glow. I quickly took off my sweater to cover it so no one would see. Two men headed straight for the entrance of the waterfront house.
Taking the chance, I lifted my sweater, and the marble quietly slid aside, revealing the old stairs going down. As I hurried down, sensor lights mounted on the ceiling lit up right above me with every step. The air was heavy with the smell of dampness, but the scent of cedar wood still came through. On the red brick walls hung paintings that clearly had value. Along the long hallway were all sorts of knick-knacks, small chests, and...
Photos. And not just any photos—they were pictures of me. I saw more with every step: from my childhood to my adult years. Near the end of the corridor, two open doors appeared on either side. The small rooms inside were completely empty. I took three more steps and saw a big door on my right. It was closed. I grabbed the handle and tried to open it. No luck. A key! My hand immediately went to my pocket. I had completely forgotten I even had the key, and thank god I hadn't changed into sweatpants or something when I got home. Otherwise, while my would-be killers were upstairs, I'd be stuck down here, right in front of this door.
I put the key in the lock, turned it once, and it opened. This was a big room that lived up to its door. It was decorated in classic Chinese style, and the only furniture was a table and a chair. On the table sat a laptop and a box. On the wall opposite me hung photos of me and my father. On the table was a photo framed in carved wood—again me, my father, and Mrs. Hua. I was sitting on her lap.
My nose started to sting, and I let myself cry. Honestly, when I saw her in the garden that night, I thought she looked at me strangely. When I told her she had to go, her eyes welled up, and she asked my permission, gently touching my elbow with her little hand. Right now, I was strangely angry. Maybe a woman whose life we could've saved had been killed—just three hours after seeing me. The international agency I rarely worked for had seriously messed up this time. I sat down in the chair, pulled the box toward me, and opened it. Inside was an old Nokia phone, a wristwatch, a jar, and a folded piece of paper. I took out only the paper and unfolded it. The writing started with my name.
"Ilhan, my son... How much I wish I could call you by your real name, Jang."
I jumped up and kicked the air. It was the same handwriting as the note that came to my house. I bit my right fist to stop myself from yelling and cursing. Making a sound while the killers were hunting me upstairs would be like signing my own death warrant. But why? Why had Mrs. Hua called me "my son," and twice at that? I sat back down.
"Jang means 'sun' in Chinese. You are my sun. When you were born, we wanted to name you Jang so badly, but given the situation in Turkey, your father and I thought it wouldn't be right to use that name here. So we chose Ilhan instead, because you needed to grow up on this land."
Reading felt pointless. Why would a mother pretend to be dead and leave behind a child who depended on her? There was no one to tell me the truth. No one close to us knew who my mother really was. I met Selçuk Amir after my mother's death, when he and my father started working together. No one could prove whether my mother was Lady Hua or not. I kept reading.
"I am Hua Li, a princess of the Tang Dynasty that ruled China in the 7th century. When I was young, there was an old wise man in the palace who studied alchemy. Every time I met him, he told me about this powder. Even though I was interested, I was afraid to try it. But when my father tried to marry me off to the commander's evil son, I made up my mind. Running away was the best solution. When I took the powder, I started finding myself in different times and countries, and that's how I traveled the world. When I came to these lands, I fell in love with the Ottoman Empire and Turkey. I couldn't leave."
I could hear footsteps from above, but I was determined to finish the letter even if I got caught.
"When the blue powder ran out, I returned to my own time. The alchemist was old and could die anytime. He advised me to collect the blue powder in shaded blue jars and hide them where I stayed. So, I had secret compartments made to store the powder.
My son… To travel through time, you swallow the blue powder with a little water or none at all, close your eyes tightly, and imagine the place and time you want to go. This powder, made from a meteor, activates your cells and transports your body to another dimension in seconds, making time travel easier. You can even understand and speak the languages of the people in the times and countries you visit."
The footsteps above were running back and forth. It wasn't hard to guess they were searching the marble stone, judging by the Chinese voices. But I had to read some sentences twice to understand them. Could all this really be true? After putting together what I'd learned these last two days, I was starting to believe that almost nothing was impossible.
"My dear son, if you're reading this letter, you've found my secret hideout. The reason I'm revealing myself to you now is the news I've received. The Chinese have found out you're my son. They will come after you. And since you're a living heir to the dynasty… The Chinese government now sees me as a threat. You understand, don't you, my son? Over the years, I've learned that when the state wants you gone, you can't keep living. You become a problem. And if you're like me, someone who travels through time and won't share that secret, they won't let you live. Take the last jar of blue powder from my drawer. There's only enough for a few doses left. I'll take it and leave. So the killers won't have a chance to kill me when they come."
But she hadn't left. Something must have gone terribly wrong, or the Chinese killers had figured out the secret, because I clearly remember leaning over Lady Hua's lifeless body, looking at the dagger in her heart. She was dead!
"They won't leave you alone. Don't forget that! They'll want to kill you too, my son. Take the letter with you and hide it. Run at the first chance you get. Your loving mother, Tang Dynasty Princess Hua Li."
Under the lines was a special red seal. The letter was finished, but my questions weren't. Could this woman really be my mother? When we found her, her mouth was dusty—actually, she had swallowed the dust. So how did the Chinese manage to kill her? If they opened the marble jar, they'd kill me just like they did her. I could follow the instructions and swallow a handful of dust. I opened the jar and dipped my hand in. As I felt the sand in my palm, a short note scribbled at the bottom of the paper caught my eye. "Remember when you broke the jar as a kid? I was mad at you." Yeah, I remembered! "You broke my last jar, and there was only enough dust for one use left inside. I got mad because being apart from you meant I'd have to go back and get more dust, but things got complicated… and after that, we stayed apart." I hurriedly stuffed the letter into my pants pocket. It was sure to come in handy where I was going. They had managed to open the marble jar—I could hear their footsteps coming down the stairs. I had to run. I took the last bit of blue dust in my palm and stared at the sparkling grains. I thought about where I was going. The Tang Dynasty… Princess Hua Li—my mother's side… I closed my eyes tight. I swallowed the dust.